Of Cow Bells and Flower Petals
by ChocolateIsMyDrug
Summary: From DDLJ, my own version of how Raj and Simran get together. Once again, randomness abound. Please read and review!


**Of Cow-Bells and Flower Petals**

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**Author's Note: **I thought about it. And in _Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge,_ the way Raj and Simran met up in India and were suddenly a couple was a little unrealistic IMO. It was a little _too _quick. No awkward randomness? What has the world come to?

So I thought… why not write up my own version? So that is what I have attempted to do. Also, I couldn't really write in the song that dominates this whole bit.

Get ready for some randomness and other slightly disturbing stuff as we enter Simran's head this time. With little tidbits from Raj, of course. Because we all love Raj.

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_Forget._ That was what she had to do. _Forget_. She owed it to her father and her mother and most of all, to herself. She could not go on with this. She didn't even know if he felt the same way! This was all so _stupid_.

Forgetting was the first step to recovering. If she did not forget, then she would be miserable for the rest of her natural life. She had to simply forget Raj who was in her past and look to Kuljit who was going to be in her future.

She had to forget Raj and his insane practical jokes, his random blabbering, his rather disturbing sense of humour, the warmth of his smile, his piano playing – she snorted –, how it felt when she hugged him…

She sighed. She had remembered more than she had forgot. She walked through the sea of yellow flowers, barely seeing.

Her relationship with Raj had been an emotional sort of bond, their exchange consisting of shared smiles, laughs and confidences instead of the generic exchange of bodily fluids –

Now she was wondering if she was just letting her imagination run to London and back and wondering whether this whole thing was one-sided. She didn't even know if Raj loved her. And that was where the problem was. She held onto the vain hope that maybe he did.

But then, even if he did, what would they do? He was in London, she was here in India… her father would never agree to it, though her mother might, for her sake…

She picked a yellow flower and pulled off a petal.

_He loves me._

This was pointless. There was nothing gained in moping around, thinking about Raj. She had to get on with her life.

_He loves me not._

But how? She _loved_ him – this was not something she could let go of easily. And what if he _did _love her?

_He loves me._

_What if, what if…_ Screw 'what if'! This was merely an infatuation that she was getting carried away with. She had never had a crush on anyone before, so she translated a feeling of slight attraction to love.

_He loves me not._

But was all of that a shallow infatuation? Sure, there was physical attraction, but what about everything else? The things she liked best about him were _not_ his looks.

Not – not that there was anything _wrong_ with his looks. Quite the opposite, in fact. But the fact that she liked him for things other than his appearance – didn't that show that this was genuine?

_He loves me._

She sighed tiredly. She was not achieving anything. _God help me,_ she thought_, I'm arguing with myself… and losing!_ Now if _that _wasn't pathetic, then she didn't know what was.

She plucked the last petal off the flower with a sigh.

She couldn't help but be _slightly_ – yes, only _slightly_ – disappointed – and in a blazing, vindictive rage – when the petal told her, _he loves you not_.

She picked another flower and started pulling off the petals. _He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he –_

The stem was thrown to the ground and thoroughly stamped on as she reached for another flower.

No matter how many times she tried, it always landed on _he loves me not._

Finally, she lay back exhausted on the massive pile of flower petals.

Perhaps this was a sign. Yes, a sign! From above. That this was not to be. He loved her not. That was what the message was.

She swiped her face angrily. _Stupid flowers,_ she thought, _allergies and whatnot._

Simran was not allergic to anything except wool. But she had forgotten that tiny little detail.

She must have been lying there for at least an hour, staring at the occasional clouds that dotted the sky, half-heartedly pulling off flower petals, already knowing the outcome before she thought to herself once again, _he loves me not_.

Just as the depressing thought of _he loves me not_ went through her brain again, she heard the vaguely familiar sound of a bell.

She stood up and looked around.

The bell sounded again and she followed the sound to a random cow.

She was just wondering how the heck the cow could make that noise when she saw the cow-bell around its neck.

The very familiar cow-bell. In fact, the same cow-bell she had bought in Germany.

The cow-bell that she had kicked herself for not packing to India – it was all she had to remember Raj by…

_Raj!_

Wait a minute.

About fifty metres away, Raj could almost see the extremely slow wheels turning in Simran's head as she put two and two together…

She looked up sharply. Nobody there.

She looked to her right. Nobody there.

She looked to her left. Nobody there.

She looked behind her…

There was…

…the cow wearing the cow-bell.

She looked diagonally to her left.

She forgot all about forgetting. Her whole body felt numb. Some very clichéd things that belong in over-done romance books happened to her.

If this had been a Bollywood movie, there would probably be some cheesy love song playing while she and Raj went to lots of different countries even though they were still in India and had a billion costume changes, wearing something different every two seconds. The weather would change and there would almost certainly be some dancing in the rain or somesuch. She would be wearing a thin dress and he a thin shirt while in the snow. She would have a different hairstyle every two seconds to go with each new costume. They would both lip-synch rather obviously to the cheesy lyrics and do dodgy dance moves.

If it were a Bollywood movie, that was. Which it wasn't. Which was a bit of a shame, really. In those movies, the hero and heroine always ended up together. Even if they _did_ have to change costumes so often.

She had time to think all of that in an extremely slow split second.

Then she ran.

Towards him, of course.

Not ten metres away, she had planned to hug him or _something_, but then she remembered her flower petals.

The deafening message: _HE LOVES YOU NOT_ pounded through her head.

She stopped abruptly as she reached him.

_Try to act normal_, she told herself. _He loves you **not** and has just come to see your wedding like a friend would. We're just friends. Just friends._

She smiled in what she hoped was a 'just friends' way, but it must have come out looking a bit strained, because he was looking at her strangely.

'I'm so glad you're here – it's nice to have a friend here when random people I don't know come and pinch my cheeks and ask me if I remember them and I'm left trying to remember so they don't feel insulted and it's good to see you,' she said extremely quickly.

She inwardly kicked herself._ Idiot._ She was sure that acting like 'just friends' didn't involve blabbering. An uncomfortable heat crept up her neck.

'Um… yeah, sure,' he said uncertainly.

'Did you come here from London?' she squeaked. 'I came here from London as well! Wow, we both came here from London! What a coincidence! Ahaha ha ha…' she trailed off lamely, laughing like a dork.

The corners of Raj's mouth curled up. After that rather disastrous incident in Europe where he had to pretend he had been joking when he had told her he loved her, it made a nice change to see _her_ nervous. 'Simran,' he said, 'you're cute when you're nervous.'

Her head snapped up so fast that her neck cricked and the colour in her face heightened. She knew her eyes were as wide as peacock's eggs. 'Wha…'

Then she brushed it off. Friends said stuff like that to each other, didn't they? Didn't they? _Didn't they?_

She cleared her throat. 'It's nice out today, isn't it? Cows like sunshine! And so do hiccups!' Her voice was unnaturally high and falsely bright. 'Have you ever wondered where hiccups go when they go?'

Raj grinned. 'Not really, but it's an interesting question. Have you ever wondered where hearts go when they go?'

She looked at him sharply. _What the hell?_ She didn't usually use profanity in her head – or at all, really – but this was so damn confusing! Did friends say stuff like that? Was that a suggestive question?

Or was she just reading too deeply into an innocent question wondering where hearts went?

Well, all she knew was that heat, no matter where it might go was all concentrated on her face right now.

When she looked up, there was a face. Very close to hers.

She screamed and clattered to the floor.

Only, she didn't _clatter _to the floor.

She didn't even _fall_ to the floor.

Because something or someone had caught her.

A different sort of face was close to hers now.

She hastily backed out of Raj's arms with a muttered thanks.

The first face didn't even look like a human face.

Probably because it _wasn't_ a human face.

Because the random cow wearing the cow-bell had wandered over to see what was happening.

And had stuck its face really close to hers.

And had caused her to scream and fall backwards.

And had made Raj catch her.

When she had realized it was the cow and not some monster, she stood cautiously as if expecting it to charge, bell-first.

Then it just started munching on the yellow flowers.

And she relaxed.

And even allowed herself a brief moment of indulging in an evil smile as she watched the yellow flowers – the bane of her life as of today – being destroyed by the cow.

Throughout all this drama, Raj had been trying not to laugh. It was a losing battle, but he tried.

Simran cleared her throat once again. 'So…' she said, looking sort of embarrassed about her – ahem – _encounter_ with the cow, 'what were we talking about before?'

Raj scratched his head. 'I don't even remember,' he admitted.

Simran scratched her head as well. 'Neither do I,' she said sheepishly.

There was silence for a while.

Then she broke it. 'You've come for the wedding, right?' she asked dully.

He grinned. 'Of course. How could there be one without me? There normally can't be a wedding without a groom, right?'

'What?'

He watched the extremely slow wheels turning again.

But after two minutes had passed in silence, he decided to speed up the turning.

He picked a yellow flower and twirled it in his fingers. 'Simran,' he said slowly, 'remember just before we went back to London? When we were on that bridge?'

She nodded slowly, after the recollection came to her.

'Well, I wasn't kidding.'

Her face froze. She looked up slowly. If her eyes had been as wide as peacock's eggs before, she knew they were the size of dinner plates now.

He hesitantly held out the flower to her.

She frowned.

His face fell. 'Oh. I'm – I'm sorry, I guess.' He turned to go.

'No – no, wait,' she said hurriedly. 'That's not what I meant. I love you and all, but I just – just don't like those flowers.' She glared at the yellowness around her. If looks were like weed-killer, the whole field would have withered.

'What? Why? Wait, you love me?'

'Yes, of course I do,' she rolled her eyes impatiently before continuing with the more important topic at hand, 'I have hated them with a passion since forever.'

'How long is forever?' He raised an eyebrow.

Damn, he knew her too well. 'Since about an hour ago,' she rectified.

'But _why?_'

She blushed. 'It's sort of weird. You know that thing that people do where they pull off a petal and say 'He/she loves me', then 'he/she loves me not' and then keep doing it until there are no petals left?'

He nodded slowly.

'Well, guess what I kept getting at the end of mine.' She sighed.

A slow smile spread over his face. 'You're telling me that you were doing this on a six-petaled flower and starting with _'he loves me'_? You do know you could have changed your results by counting the petals first?'

She whacked him upside the head. 'Okay, it was stupid! But it's a bit sad to be counting petals so you know you get the answer you want. It defeats the purpose of doing it in the first place.'

He put his arm around her. 'Oh, so there's a purpose?'

'You're an idiot.'

'You know you love me.'

There was a comfortable silence for a while, which a relief from the awkward silences of before.

Then Raj broke it. 'I've got a simple solution to your flower problem,' he said triumphantly. 'It will work with any flower, regardless of the number of petals.'

She raised a sceptical eyebrow. 'Oh, really?'

'Yep. Want to try it?' He picked a flower.

He pulled off a petal. 'He loves you,' he said, planting his lips on her forehead.

He pulled off another petal. 'He loves you,' he repeated, kissing her temple.

A third petal fell to the ground. 'He loves you,' Raj said again, kissing the tip of her nose this time.

'I think this strategy of yours works,' she said. 'But I can't be sure until you pull off _all _the petals.'

He smiled and pulled off another one. 'He loves you,' he said, planting a kiss on the corner of her mouth.

Now there are certain rules about public displays of affection.

But it's not public if nobody's watching, so…

End 

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**Author's Note 2:** I'm thinking about writing yet _another_ fic from DDLJ. That scene where Simran is drunk. Hell, if that's what happens when you're drunk, then I want some cognac! If you have any ideas for that sort of fic, let me know.

I'd like some feedback for this fic if you can be bothered reviewing. Detailed enough? Too detailed? Grammar, spelling and punctuation? General flow of the story? Please review – your comments help me improve my writing.

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